By Joel Ceausu
The Suburban
The City of Montreal has unveiled its Responsible Landlord project to improve living conditions of tenants and reduce unsanitary conditions of the city’s rental stock.
The central element is to intensify preventive and targeted inspections, meaning a specific number of multi-tenant buildings will be proactively inspected each year to detect health issues. A pilot phase this spring targets nearly 90 buildings of 100 housing units, approximately 15,000 homes. Once completed, buildings with six or more dwellings will be inspected. Prioritized buildings will be those which have not been built or renovated recently and located in socio-economically vulnerable sectors or that have numerous complaints.
To encourage as many tenants as possible to file complaints, the city says it will also improve communications with the population by distributing leaflets and resource cards during inspections, which will be carried out in the presence of community liaison officers (ALIS).
The boroughs mainly have the responsibility for health and sanitation inspections, says Loyola councillor Despina Sourias, associate executive committee member for housing, and “the city usually supports them in their efforts with the most difficult situations. Now, for the first time, the city of Montreal and its boroughs will reinforce their efforts in order to inspect 10,000 rental housing units this year.”
CDN-NDG has many older buildings with many cases of neglect, added Sourias, who says under the Projet Montréal administration, the borough has been proactive in working with local housing organizations supporting tenants. “This has helped in better understanding the reality on the ground and informing tenants about their rights.”
To inform tenants and make landlords more accountable, inspection results will be publicly available on the city’s website with ratings for elements inspected. The city will also harmonize inspection practices and strengthen the use of coercive tools to encourage owners to carry out required work and reduce delays in resolving non-conformities.
To improve transparency regarding rent prices and protect tenants from excessive increases, the city is also giving $30,000 to Vivre en Ville to help improve its Rent Registry, which already lists the rents of some 20,000 housing units in Montreal thanks to voluntary registration by residents. The financial contribution will make it possible to add some 2,500 registrations to the Registry and a “City of Montreal” section will be added to the analysis report. An awareness campaign will be produced and communicated to Montrealers to quickly increase tenants’ buy-in.
That shift from creating a city registry to subsidizing an existing NGO project is “an abandonment” of an election promise,” says Ensemble Montréal housing critic Julien Hénault-Ratelle. “When we see the amounts given, $30,000, it is really peanuts compared to what is necessary. The numbers speak for themselves: we are talking about average rent increases of 8% last year, 10% this year; it takes strong actions, concrete actions and unfortunately that’s not what we see from the administration.”
Inspection numbers don’t add up either, says Hénault-Ratelle, insisting the administration “abandoned” tenants by dropping a pledge to implement landlord certification. Under the previous plan, the obligation was on owners to do inspections by private firms “and what we see today is to increase, with no additional inspectors, the number of preventive inspections… This is a flagrant retreat.” He says notwithstanding the city’s claim otherwise, the current crop of inspectors would need 60 years “just to come and inspect building exteriors of six or more units.” He says another 50 new hires are needed to conduct 19,000 inspections within five years. “We’re putting the majority of the responsibility on the boroughs,” he says, noting that with city transfers of 2%, “boroughs are being squeezed.”
For information about the plan (in French) visit https://montreal.ca/articles/proprietaire-responsable-pour-des-multilogements-bien-entretenus-28583. View the Registry at https://rentalregistry.ca/en/on/about-registry n